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I'm a lurker on the forums here and I'm currently planning to take the GMAT on 26 Feb. I've spent the last three months studying maths and I'm sitting on Q38 - Q40, desperately trying to push it up a few notches so I can get into the 75% percentile on Maths.... Verbal is fortunately a strong point (reflecting my background as a lawyer, no doubt!) with V40 and above, depending on how much I bother with it, given my known weakness.

My biggest barriers appear to be DS, silly computational errors and poor time management. I'm trying to set some better boundaries for time as suggested above - any other tips would be helpful!

I'm a lurker on the forums here and I'm currently planning to take the GMAT on 26 Feb. I've spent the last three months studying maths and I'm sitting on Q38 - Q40, desperately trying to push it up a few notches so I can get into the 75% percentile on Maths.... Verbal is fortunately a strong point (reflecting my background as a lawyer, no doubt!) with V40 and above, depending on how much I bother with it, given my known weakness.

My biggest barriers appear to be DS, silly computational errors and poor time management. I'm trying to set some better boundaries for time as suggested above - any other tips would be helpful!

Any tips? Should I just postpone it and give myself another few weeks? Is it worth going for the additional 2 GMATPrep tests at this stage?

Thanks!

It depends on what score you are looking for. Q40/V40 is around 650, which is not bad.If you can pull it up to 42/42, that's 690 territory, and if you can get Q45, you would be in the 700-heaven.

If you are still under Q40, then you have some demons to hunt and depending on your dedication and capacity for time, may be doable but will take 2-hours per day for Quant with a solid map/review every day and then another hour for verbal. At this point if you are not in a rush, you may want to postpone by 2 weeks and do it right without killing yourself.

A few suggestions would be to either do a deep dive with your mistakes and figure out why you are making them, and how to stop, and prevent. It is possible to prevent every single mistake - yes, it is possible to get perfect, it just depends if you want to go there. Most people stop somewhere between Q48 and perfection. If you can't figure out what to do and how to stop making mistakes, get a tutor for a few hours. Get them to help you. It will be money well spent (though prepare to pay $200/hr for a MGMAT or Veritas Prep tutor) so it is not cheap.

My other piece of advice is - you should MASTER the math and get to a good level. There is no value in cutting corners and hating it. Embrace it and love it. You will need it at BSchool and when your kids go to school and when you have to model spreadsheets later in the career. Do come to terms with - you need it. Don't hate it _________________

Thanks for your encouraging words BB - happy to report that I've done a bit of diving and worked on the time management, arithmetic/number properties questions and permutations and just got a Q47, V41 (710) on GMATPrep Exam 4. Obviously, feeling a bit relieved (even though I didn't make it to question 37 on the maths...?)!

I guess with three days to go, I'm going to rest up, review some more maths concepts/formulas and continue to keep an eye on the damn clock...

bb wrote:

majic wrote:

I'm a lurker on the forums here and I'm currently planning to take the GMAT on 26 Feb. I've spent the last three months studying maths and I'm sitting on Q38 - Q40, desperately trying to push it up a few notches so I can get into the 75% percentile on Maths.... Verbal is fortunately a strong point (reflecting my background as a lawyer, no doubt!) with V40 and above, depending on how much I bother with it, given my known weakness.

My biggest barriers appear to be DS, silly computational errors and poor time management. I'm trying to set some better boundaries for time as suggested above - any other tips would be helpful!

Any tips? Should I just postpone it and give myself another few weeks? Is it worth going for the additional 2 GMATPrep tests at this stage?

Thanks!

It depends on what score you are looking for. Q40/V40 is around 650, which is not bad.If you can pull it up to 42/42, that's 690 territory, and if you can get Q45, you would be in the 700-heaven.

If you are still under Q40, then you have some demons to hunt and depending on your dedication and capacity for time, may be doable but will take 2-hours per day for Quant with a solid map/review every day and then another hour for verbal. At this point if you are not in a rush, you may want to postpone by 2 weeks and do it right without killing yourself.

A few suggestions would be to either do a deep dive with your mistakes and figure out why you are making them, and how to stop, and prevent. It is possible to prevent every single mistake - yes, it is possible to get perfect, it just depends if you want to go there. Most people stop somewhere between Q48 and perfection. If you can't figure out what to do and how to stop making mistakes, get a tutor for a few hours. Get them to help you. It will be money well spent (though prepare to pay $200/hr for a MGMAT or Veritas Prep tutor) so it is not cheap.

My other piece of advice is - you should MASTER the math and get to a good level. There is no value in cutting corners and hating it. Embrace it and love it. You will need it at BSchool and when your kids go to school and when you have to model spreadsheets later in the career. Do come to terms with - you need it. Don't hate it

Practice as many questions under time pressure as possible. You should have a way to approach question types always in the same way. This will save valuable time as you follow your game plan in every question.

The worst mistake is to treat each question differently. It is always the same: you have to understand the information given, understand the questions, find the correct concept/method to apply, avoid traps and answer. If you can eliminate certain answer choices but don't know for sure the answer, make a qualified guess.